August 2005
The Shaping of Things to Come
Re-Imagineering the Church for the 21st Century - A seminar for every person in the body of ChristSeptember 29-30, 2005
North Heights Lutheran Church
Arden Hills, MNThere is currently unprecedented interest and focus on reshaping the church for mission with a buzz around "emerging church," "mission-shaped church," or "discovering fresh expressions" of the church. When we say that the church needs to become more missional, we are not talking about sending more missionaries in the classic sense. Rather, we are advocating an in-depth examination of the foundations of the existing church which is invariably static, rooted in one place, and institutionalized. The missional church, on the other hand, is a sent church. It is a going church. Becoming more missional means we must recover the basic DNA of our sent-ness. If we are to do this, our understanding and experience of being and doing "church" needs to undergo some huge changes-ones that will affect the whole fiber of what we know as the church today.
For the first time, we in the West are living in what has been called a "post-Christendom era." Most people throughout the Western world have seen what the Church has to offer, and have found it to be wanting, even though there is almost unprecedented openness to the issues of God, faith, and meaning. The need for the relevance of the gospel has never been greater, but the relevance of the Church has never been less. If ever there was a time for innovative missionary effort in the West, it is now.
This seminar is for those who are willing to think and grapple with this serious question that confronts the church in the 21st century. Rather than being merely encouraged to follow the latest trend, we will be challenged to boldly re-imagine what it means to be the church so that we can be spiritually re-engineered to do mission in a post-Christian age.
Our special speaker, Michael Frost, is the Founding Director of the Centre for Evangelism & Global Mission at Morling Theological College in Sydney, Australia. He brings real-life stories gathered from emergent church projects from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and England. Michael is not an armchair theorist, but is engaged in innovative and risk-taking ventures in church planting. Most recently, he has planted a church on Sidney's northern beaches called Small Boat Big Sea. Michael, along with co-author and fellow Australian, Alan Hirsch, has written an important book on this topic titled The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation & Mission for the 21st Century. They also have established and are co-directors for Forge, a missional training network for young leaders. Their work presents foundational elements required for missional learning in order for the established Church to orient itself to the unique challenges of the 21st century.
Adapted from "The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation & Mission for the 21st Century"
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